Hadza phonology
Hadza syllable structure is limited to CV, or CVN if nasal vowels are analyzed as a coda nasal. Vowel-initial syllables do not occur initially, and medially they appear to be equivalent to /hV/. Hadza is noted for having medial clicks (clicks within morphemes). This distribution is also found in Sandawe and the Nguni Bantu languages, but not in the Khoisan languages of southern Africa. Some of these words are historically derivable from clicks in initial positions (many appear to reflect lexicalized reduplication, for example, and some are due to prefixes), but others are opaque. As in Sandawe, most medial clicks are glottalized, but not all: puche 'a spleen', tanche 'to aim', tacce 'a belt', minca 'to lick one's lips', laqo 'to trip someone', keqhe-na 'slow', penqhenqhe ~ peqeqhe 'to hurry', haqqa-ko 'a stone', shenqe 'to peer over', exekeke 'to listen', naxhi 'to be crowded', khaxxe 'to jump', binxo 'to carry kills under one's belt'. Tone Neither lexical tone nor pitch accent has been demonstrated for Hadza. There are no known lexical minimal pairs for or grammatical use of stress/tone. Vowels Hadza has five vowels, . Long vowels may occur when intervocalic is elided. For example, or 'to climb', but some words are not attested with , as 'she' vs 'to be ill'. Invariable nasal vowels, although uncommon, do occur, though not before consonants that have a place of articulation to assimilate too. (In such positions, and are allophones.) All vowels are nasalized before glottalized nasal and voiced nasal clicks. Consonants #The nasalization of the glottalized nasal clicks is apparent on preceding vowels, but not during the click itself. The labial (or ) is found in a single mimetic word where it alternates with . #The labial ejective is only found in a few words. #The palatal affricates may be pronounced with an alveolar onset ( /}} etc.), but this is not required. #The velar ejective varies between a plosive , a central affricate , a lateral affricate ʼ]}}, and a fricative . The other ejective affricates may also appear as ejective fricatives (e.g. ). #The lateral approximant is found as a flap between vowels and occasionally elsewhere, especially in rapid speech. #The voiceless velar fricative is known from only a single word, where it alternates with . # and zero onset appear to be allophones. may be allophones of . #The NC sequences only occur in word-initial position in loanwords. The voiced obstruents and nasal consonants and perhaps (on darker background) also seem to have been borrowed (Elderkin 1978). Orthography A practical orthography has been devised by Miller and Anyawire (Miller et al. 2013). As of 2015, this orthography is not being used by any Hadza speakers and is therefore of limited value for communication in Hadza. It is broadly similar to the orthographies of neighboring languages such as Swahili, Isanzu, Iraqw, and Sandawe. The apostrophe, which is ubiquitous in transcription in the anthropological literature but causes problems with literacy, has been reduced: Glottal stop between like vowels is indicated by vowel sequences (that is, is written , as in 'the Hadza'), and ejectives and glottalized clicks by gemination (apart from reduced instead of *ddl for ʼ/}}). The ejectives are based on the voiced consonants, , because these are otherwise found mostly in borrowings and thus not common. Tc and tch are as in Sandawe, sl as in Iraqw. (This is ultimately a French convention.) Nasalized vowels / VN rimes are . Long vowels are , or where they are due to an elided . A tonic syllable may be written with an acute accent, , but is generally not marked. References External links * Category:Language phonologies Category:Language orthographies